Excited
For the non-technical: Yahoo! Hack Day is an event where web and software developers spend nights at the Yahoo! campuses around the world to develop anything they want using Yahoo! technologies. They try to make it fun (the US version brought in Beck one year, GirlTalk the next) and have awards the next day although it’s mostly for the camaraderie.
So when the event was held this year in Taipei, what did Yahoo! Taiwan do? They hired lapdancers. Needless to say, a lot of people formerly affiliated with Yahoo!’s developer programs — already smarting from the lack of females in technology — were pretty pissed. (Full disclosure: I also previously worked at Yahoo!.) But a quick straw poll from the Taiwanese members of 8Asians kinda shrugged it off: one commenter on Gawker even noted that “being Taiwanese, all I can say is this is considered harmless fun in Taiwan and is culturally OK.” Also, people completely up in arms about this: your outrage should have started last year.
Is this an example of Yahoo! Taiwan completely going over the line? Or is this truly just a cultural thing?
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i think it's completely okay .. if you go to computex you can find similar shows by asus , acer , microsoft ....
i think it's completely okay .. if you go to computex you can find similar shows by asus , acer , microsoft ....
I didn't say the practice isn't questionable - I don't personally like it. But the post and the bulk of the commenters pass blind judgments through ignorance and an anglo-centric cultural view point - just like what a white foreigner would do. The point I was making was that everyone was saying these are your average strippers from American style strip clubs - those people don't exist in Taiwan. Those are just ordinary show girls asked to perform these quasi-lap dances most likely unwittingly, yet instead of pity their crappy working condition, everyone there condemn them to be professional sex workers. There are sex workers who sings or dances with see-through clothings - those are called "Beef Shows", but they don't do pole dancing and they don't strip. These girls are not of the sort and they won't be hired by company like Yahoo.
Plus, although there's an openess toward more female body like cleavage (and the popularity of "celebs" like Yaoyao), nudity itself is still taboo, and any women who goes around half-naked would be consider not fit for society; meaning, they won't be hired to do shows for major tech companies. The average Taiwanese is MUCH more conservative sexually than your average American, but they are not as hypocritically prudish. Acknowledgment of sex and frank discussions is normal between friends, and pole dancing for fun is just an exercise for bored housewives.
Before any of you start feeling bad for the poorly oppressed Taiwanese women, consider this: 30% of Taiwan's legislature is female, while in the US, this bastion of modern feminism, a paltry 18%.
I live in Taiwan and I have to agree with the gist of avaorac's comment... a performance like the one at Yahoo! Taiwan would be seen as goofy, sexy fun and wouldn't have the same connotations that it would have in the US.
I have to say, though, that while using half-naked women to sell everything from beer and betelnuts to cars, computers and designer toys is ubiquitous in Taiwan, not everyone is comfortable with it. There are a lot of Taiwanese women AND men who don't find the practice appealing, to say the least. I don't think being offended or at least exasperated is a "shockingly white" reaction.
Exactly! Sounds like a screed to me. LOL
Believe me Asian cultures have just as many things that offend them. They're often just DIFFERENT things. Trust me, they're no more known for their "openness" or "non offending culture" than any other country on the planet. The "West", of course, always gets portrayed as being far more sensitive than all of these other "progressive" cultures in the world. Please, spare me the long look down those noses. EVERY culture has things it collectively takes offense at, and things individiduals within that culture take offense at, too, depending on their political leanings, religious leanings, economic status, and, most importantly, their age (note this guy is pretty young, so naturally he thinks his whole culture is somehow more open than the rest of the world)
And apparently white people making "Asian eyes" is considered normal there "in the Eastern World." Yeah, I'm sure caucasians just LOVE running around Taiwan, Hong Kong, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo and everywhere in between making "slant eyes" with their fingers and feeling completely safe in the knowledge that every Asian person around them considers it "normal".
Think before you write, JC John. ;)
Eh, anyone here from Taiwan? I mean, REALLY lived there? Ever been to a tech even in Taiwan? Anyone who actually know something about Taiwan's sex industry? THERE ARE NO LAP DANCERS OR STRIP CLUBS IN TAIWAN. There are NO strippers like the one we see all the time in the states. Stripping is very Western and POLE DANCING is something people learn at home for fun in Taiwan. These girls are just SHOWGIRLS who learned pole dancing - they are NOT stripping and probably have never stripped for anyone. They are just doing slutty pole dancing for a tech show. They are just normal show girls and dancers. ARG! I'm saying that this post and the response are shockingly white. You can see minor celebs doing this kind of dance on TV ALL THE TIME. Not to say there's no sex industry in Taiwan - on the contrary - just not this kind of sex worker in Taiwan. Again, these girls are NOT SEX WORKERS - they are just normal show girls doing pole dancing, and simulated lap dances. They are not stripping OR really touching those dudes.
"Especially when we're talking about the Western and Eastern worlds. We are totally different. The Western world have so many things that they get offended about which isn't offending at all to us. For example, that photo of a Chinese where (take note) "HIS FRIENDS" mimicked his eyes."
How is this relevant?
they really should've used that time to develop something useful, considering yahoo is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day.
I don't mind lapdancers...haha.
On a side note, maybe they should have consider the feelings of the females and possibly other people who belong to traditions/religions that maintain stricter gender rules, in this event.
That's as far as I will get on my American mentality. I don't really like imposing our values (honestly, a lot of it is quite superficial) on others. I didn't like the previous post not long ago about the Cove movie involving the dolphins in Japan and someone reply back that my comment didn't matter (not exact words but the implied meaning).
Other than all of that, I'm in large agreement with JC John.
Cultural thing.
Note to everyone: When you are going to visit some event hosted somewhere, do not bring your own "set of guidelines" of what is "good and evil". You are a "foreigner", in other words, you do not know that country's culture.
Especially when we're talking about the Western and Eastern worlds. We are totally different. The Western world have so many things that they get offended about which isn't offending at all to us. For example, that photo of a Chinese where (take note) "HIS FRIENDS" mimicked his eyes.
Many people (including Asians "born" in the West) were offended, but guess what? It is pretty normal here in the Eastern world.
If you don't want our "openness" and "non-offending" culture, don't do events in our part of the planet.
^_^
PS.
I am not defending Yahoo! Taiwan here and I am leaving many factors out (like the "corporate" factor; "religious/faith" factor; "women image" factor; etc.) There are many factors to be considered, if an NGO or company or event organizer still decided to go on with something that is offending to someone else, there's no other explanation but that - "cultural".
It may be weird, crazy, strange, silly to you and me, but to them it is not. So don't get me wrong, because if I we are going to consider those factors I mentioned, I wouldn't approve of lap dancing at all even if it is a cultural thing.
Not to defend what Yahoo! Taiwan did, but Taiwan does have some strange practices, including having strippers/dancers at funerals.
Grave Stakes. Time Magazine. Monday, Jun. 11, 2001
http://bit.ly/YIbQ1
and this made the mainstream U.S. press last year:
http://bit.ly/4tnWAS
I've already heard some people bust out the "Asian guys are sexist" trope over this so I think it's doubly stupid. It's pretty gross IMO.
While it may be "OK" culturally in Taiwan, it is not OK in corporate culture and it is not OK for it to be associated with their brand. Also, being a female, if I were looking for a job there, I would think twice. Why would I want to work for a company that thinks it's OK to objectify women?
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